Georgian Item of the Week

Georgian Item of the Week Presents:

The Big Three of the Napoleonic Wars: Well, Nel and Nap. Part Three.

Napoleon I of France
15 August 1769 - 5 May 1821

Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul
1802
Antoine-Jean Gros
Musée Nationale de la Légion d’Honneur, Paris

Napoleon Bonaparte was born to a minor Corsican noble family – the Buonapartes - in 1769, not long after the island became the property of France. Following a childhood spent in military academies, Napoleon distinguished himself in the army of revolutionary France, particularly during the campaigns of 1796. Napoleon was a master politician and despite British military defeat in Egypt in 1798, by February 1800 he was established as the First Consul of France. In 1804 he crowned himself Emperor of France and set out to conquer Europe.

Despite devastating naval defeat again by the British at Trafalgar (1805), for the next eight years Napoleon dominated Europe, fighting and defeating a range of alliances involving combinations of Austria, Britain, Russia and Prussia. Napoleon’s power began to mislead him however and in 1812 he made a tragically ill judged attempt to invade Russia. The majority of a 400 000 man army was lost in Russia, Britain had fought its way to France through Spain and in 1814 Paris surrendered to allied forces and Napoleon was sent into exile on the Island of Elba.

Napoleon had one final adventure in 1815. In less than one hundred days he had secretly returned to France, attracted vast support and reclaimed his Imperial throne, had re-emerged on the European scene with his army, and was finally defeated by the Duke of Wellington and General Blücher at Waterloo, and was then exiled even further from Europe. Napoleon Bonaparte spent the six final years of his life on the rocky island of St Helena, and despite modern theories citing a poisoning death, Napoleon died of stomach cancer in 1821. He was a masterful soldier, a highly skilled tactician and a superb administrator, and one of the most celebrated, and debated, personages in history.

Georgian Item of the Week

Georgian Item of the Week Presents:

The Big Three of The Napoleonic Wars: Well, Nel and Nap. Part Two.

Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
29 September 1758 - 21st October 1805

Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson
1800
Lemuel Francis Abbot
National Maritime Museum, UK

If Wellington is regarded as Britain’s greatest soldier, another Georgian must be considered their greatest sailor. Horatio Nelson won three of the most decisive naval battles in British history at the Nile (1798), Copenhagen (1801) and of course, Trafalgar, where in 1805 Nelson took his famous and essential victory over the navy of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Born in Norfolk, his father was the Rev. Edmund Nelson and his uncle the Admiral Suckling*. Nelson likewise joined the navy at the age of 12 and by his own merit as well as his Uncle’s interest, was promoted through the ranks to Captain by the age of 21. In 1798, Nelson was responsible for a great victory in a battle with the French navy. The Battle of the Nile (also known as the Battle of Abukir Bay) took place on August 1, 1798 and, as a result, Napoleon's ambition to take the war to the British in India came to an end.

In April 1801 came the Battle of Copenhagen. At that time, the Baltic was a vital source of trade and maritime supplies for Britain. So when in early 1801, under the influence of Russia, the Baltic and Northern states formed themselves into an 'Armed Neutrality of the North' and placed an embargo on British ships, the Government was to take action. Negotiations with the Danes broke down, a key member of the Armed Neutrality, and battle ensued. Nelson’s disregard for too timid higher orders gained the victory.

1805 brought the most famous naval battle in England’s history: Trafalgar. Having abandoned his plans for an invasion of Britain, Napoleon had now started a new campaign against Austria which had to be thwarted. Napoleon's navy, under the leadership of Villeneuve, was an excellent one and the combined forces of the French and the Spanish a formidable opponent. Britian's advantae was The Nelson Touch. Nelson and the British were thunderingly victorious. But the British navy, and the nation, suffered a great loss. Vice-Admiral Nelson was struck by a French sniper’s bullet during the action. Though he lingered long enough to learn that he had won the battle, he died on board his vessel The HMS Victory hours after being wounded, on the 21^st of October 1805.

*This name is so memorable that I've often wondered if Austen, who must have known the life story of the nation's living legend, borrowed Suckling for the bragging, affected Mrs Elton's so amusingly named relatives in Emma

Georgian Item of The Week

Georgian Item of the Week presents:

The Big Three of The Napoleonic Wars: Well, Nel and Nap.
Part One.

Field Marshal His Grace Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington c. 1 May 1769 - 14 September 1852.

Portrait of The Duke of Wellington
1812
Francisco Goya
National Gallery, London

Born to an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family in Ireland, Wellesley joined the army in 1787. He fought against the French in Flanders and in 1796 went to India, where he achieved considerable military success, taking part in the Mysore War against Tipu Sultan. During the subjugation of the Mahrattas he achieved a remarkable victory at Assaye (1803).

On 18 June 1815, the army of Napoleon faced an allied force of British, Belgain and Dutch troops on a ridge outside a small Belgian town called Waterloo. The British Army in Belgium was lead by a man described by contemporaries and historians alike as possibly the greatest British soldier of all time. From India, where he campaigned to create the British Raj, to being the mastermind of the Peninsular War, which drove the French armies from Portugal and Spain, Wellington had never lost an engagement.

Nonetheless, Napoleon Bonaparte was a master of warfare. If the allied troops folded, the road to Brussels would be open and Napoleon would again be able to plunge Europe into war. To prevent this, the armies of Wellington had a hold a ridge overlooking a farm, until the Prussian army under General Blucher could arrive and hopefully defeat the French. It was an extremely close, long, devastating battle. By 10 pm on June 18th 1815 nigh on eighty thousand soldiers lay dead on the fields of Waterloo. But the British allied forces and Wellington were victorious and the battle, and it's ramifications would shape Europe for the century which followed it.